“The Crush” Mansion

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Another Vancouver location that I stalked while visiting the Pacific Northwest two weeks ago was the supposed Seattle-area mansion where Adrian Forrester (aka Alicia Silverstone) lived with her parents in the 1993 movie The Crush.  And while I can’t say that I was a huge fan of the thriller/drama, because Alicia Silverstone grew up in the same relatively small city that I did – a suburb of San Francisco named San Mateo – The Crush has always held a special place in my heart.  Especially because it was one of Alicia’s very first acting roles.

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Before landing her leading role in The Crush at the age of 15, Alicia’s only other major onscreen appearance had been a bit part in the Season 5 episode of The Wonder Years titled “Road Test” (pictured above).  She was still attending San Mateo High School when her Wonder Years episode aired, but by the time she was cast in The Crush she had left school permanently to pursue acting and the entire city of San Mateo was abuzz with the news of the local girl who made good.  I can still remember when the movie was released and the furor it caused in my hometown.  Not only did Alicia fly her two best friends out to L.A. for the big Hollywood premiere (as detailed in a huge article in our local paper that I still have a copy of somewhere), but pretty much her entire class headed over to our local movie theatre, Fashion Island Cinemas, on the day the movie opened to watch.  The theatre was completely sold out and there was a big party afterwards.  From what I remember, Alicia was in attendance, as well.  I went to a different high school, so I was not invited to the viewing, but one of my good friends, who knew Alicia fairly well, got to attend and I can distinctly remember calling him up later that night and pretty much hanging on his every word as he described the evening to me.  Oh, how I would have LOVED to have been there!  But I digress.

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So, when fellow stalker Owen mentioned that he had managed to track down several of the locations featured in The Crush, I just HAD to stalk all of them – in honor of my hometown.  🙂  And the locale that I was most excited about stalking, of course, was the ginormous mansion where the Forrester family lived in the flick.  Owen found the residence thanks to one of the movie’s location assistants, who happened to remember the name of the street where it was located.  From there Owen used Google Street View to determine its exact location.  YAY!  Thank you, Owen! In real life, the Crush mansion, which is known as “The Disher House”, was constructed in 1912 by British architect Paul Phipps.  The home, which is absolutely beautiful in person, was originally built for a financier named J.B. Johnson, but is named after the Disher family, who lived there from 1916 through 1972.  You can read more about the mansion in the Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s Guidebook for their 2003 Open Vancouver Heritage House Tour here.  And you can take a peek at some close-up photographs of the home here.

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I am very happy to report that the Disher house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in The Crush, but unfortunately there is quite a bit foliage in the front yard that limits the view of the property from the street.  Both the interior and the exterior of the residence were used in the flick.

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Sadly, the apartment that Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes) rented does not exist in real life.  Producers had it built on top of the home’s real life garage exclusively for the filming and it was subsequently removed after the filming had wrapped.

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The Forrester’s neighbor’s pool, which shows up a couple of times in The Crush, is located in the backyard of the home that is directly east of the Crush mansion.  Apparently, the pool was the site of a deleted scene during which Adrian and Nick take a midnight dip.  That scene is later referred by Adrian when she is being examined by an officer at the police station after falsely accusing Nick of rape.

UPDATE – The Crush mansion is for sale!  You can check out some interior photographs of it here.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location!  🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking!  🙂

Stalk It: Adrian Forrester’s house from The Crush is located at 1526 Angus Drive in Vancouver, British Columbia.

13 Replies to ““The Crush” Mansion”

  1. I’ve lived in northwest Washington state most of my life, have visited Vancouver a couple hundred times, and am very familiar with the city and climate. First of all, it’s obvious to me in the opening scene when Nick is driving into the city looking at a map of Washington that he’s in Vancouver (which sits right up against the mountains) rather than Seattle (which does not). I also noticed that no mention is made of Seattle or Washington in the film, so the producers didn’t make much of an effort to falsify the true location. However, I was surprised to learn that the primary Angus Dr filming location was just off Granville street — which is one of the main north-south boulevards through the city (you can see the traffic whizzing by on Granville in a couple of scenes, but the background noise from it is less than what I would have expected given its proximity).

    From looking at the foliage on the deciduous trees, it appears most of The Crush was made in the late summer and early autumn of 1992, but some of the scenes were clearly filmed later in the fall because more leaves are missing (in particular, the scenes where Nick tries to rent the room on Cypress St). In fact, after Nick is turned down for that room (when the weather looks damp and gray), he apparently returns back to Angus Dr the same day (where it’s brighter and there are more leaves on the trees). The scene where Amy goes into her unattached darkroom (Lindsay missed that location) also may have been filmed later in the fall, and there is more of a mid-autumn look (you can see the fall debris near the curb) when Adrian gets out of a taxi and crashes Michael’s benefit. A more subtle climate goof occurs when Nick and Adrian are in his room above the garage alone for the first time, looking at the neighbor’s pool: both have obviously been misted to give the effect of it being a hot, sweaty night — but Nick’s mention that it’s past Adrian’s bedtime indicates it’s late in the evening, and Seattle (and Vancouver) are rarely that uncomfortably steamy at that time of day even in the middle of summer (even more rarely in the late summer or early fall).

    Another point that many Americans may not be aware of is that the age of consent in Canada in the 1990s was 14 (it’s since been raised to 16) — so a sexual relationship between Nick and Adrian would have been legal if the producers chose to set the film in its actual production location, and Nick would not have been “blowing the line” (to use Amy’s terminology).

    I assume local actors were used for some non-speaking roles, but there appears to be only one with a fairly obvious Canadian accent who got to talk: the cop who pulls Nick out of his car.

  2. Thats an awesome post! How cool that you have a connection to Alicia Silverstone – she’s my favorite female celeb!

  3. I guess I’m one of the rare ones. I loved the movie. Her name was originally Darian. There is some story behind that too on why they had to change it to Adrian. I hate that, too because I know when they are saying Adrian on screen, they really are not.

  4. Yay Lindsay you found “The Crush” house for me! Now I have to plan a trip to Vancouver soooon. Thanks again! Ohh and did you find any of the other Crush locations?!? I can’t wait to see 😉

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